With school over, it's time to engage in after school club hijinks with cute classmates, and learn about one another in the process. Yet, things take a turn, revealing a darkness beneath. The anime girls get sinister, and unsettling gore makes you feel a bit sick. Doki Doki Literature Club, who? I'm talking about Higurashi: When They Cry, the episodic horror game from 2002 created by 07th Expansion and led by Ryukishi07, who's writing the upcoming Silent Hill f.
Which isn't to rag on Doki Doki Literature Club – it's a fun take on the formula that goes its own direction, and I'm always for anything that'll get players more interested in the visual novel space. Playing Higurashi after Doki Doki is quite funny given just how many similarities they share – it's one of those moments where you clock a heavy influence so clearly that it feels like everything clicks into place. Higurashi might be less well known over here (it took a long time to be released in English) but it's a massively influential cult classic folk horror game. It's the main thing that's making me extremely excited for Silent Hill f.
